From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[The_Mask]

The mace starts pretty bad, because it doesn't have the club jumping attack, which can be really good early game. It does shine later though. 10+ becomes one of the best light weapons in the game, for a STR build (without any sort of reach, of course).

 

[Lutte]

How does the humble Mace fare in Dark Souls 1? I know from experience that they melt half the game in Dark Souls 2 and there's plenty of dudes in armor in Dark Souls 3 to justify it there, but what about Dark Souls 1? It's a lot harder to obtain if you don't start as a Cleric, since you have to either get it from the hidden ledge right before the Pinwheel fight and it's not very easy to get there as a new player, OR you have to wait until Patches goes to Firelink and you have to beat Nito for that to happen. So is it worth the hassle to get it, start as a Cleric and build around your stat block or can you get away with picking something like the Morning Star as alternative until you find the Mace?

Get the reinforced club. Despite the supposed higher scaling of the mace, the reinforced club does almost the same damage as the mace at 40STR while also being able to do bleeding (doesn't work on a lot of bosses but it's quite something when it does). It's the better light STR blunt weapon.

 

[Caim]

Yeah, I know all about the mace's lack of range. DS2 taught me that if I want to use the mace I need to shove myself into my enemies' faces and that I need to pick my fights carefully. It's not like the gargoyle halberd where one swing can kill three dudes in one go. But it's good to know that in DS1 it's also good.

Get the reinforced club. Despite the supposed higher scaling of the mace, the reinforced club does almost the same damage as the mace at 40STR while also being able to do bleeding (doesn't work on a lot of bosses but it's quite something when it does). It's the better light STR blunt weapon.

Huh. Crunching the numbers with Soulsplanner shows that there's only a 3 point difference, and the bleed effect is pretty good. Will keep that in mind.

 

[Lutte]

Huh. Crunching the numbers with Soulsplanner shows that there's only a 3 point difference, and the bleed effect is pretty good. Will keep that in mind.

I'll always believe Dark Souls 1 was tuned by people who wanted to roleplay cavemen.
1/ Reinforced Club is close to optimal lightweight STR weapon and available early
2/ Large Club and Great Club are better than any actual greathammer and greataxes and are also available early, while having less statistics requirement to wield

Better not stand in front of my big wooden stick!

 

[Caim]

I'll always believe Dark Souls 1 was tuned by people who wanted to roleplay cavemen.
1/ Reinforced Club is close to optimal lightweight STR weapon and available early
2/ Large Club and Great Club are better than any actual greathammer and greataxes and are also available early, while having less statistics requirement to wield

Better not stand in front of my big wooden stick!

Yeah, it's weird. In Dark Souls 3 the difference is more pronounced once you slap on the Heavy infusion, but in DS2 the Reinforced Club actually does MORE damage than the Mace (at 50/6 Str/Dex you're looking at 404 VS 369), and the regular Club is right behind the Mace (365/369). Except in Dark Souls 2 weapons are made of wet cardboard, so your Reinforced Clubs have only 20 Durability compared to the Mace's 60 (Club has 50). Yes, this does mean that the Reinforced Club is the least Reinforced of the two. And given that you can buy the Mace way before the Reinforced Club (the blacksmith VS the laddersmith) and the regular Club before that, you either have to invest in the Repair spell (15 INT, need a Fragrant Branch for that) or load up on Reinforced Clubs. But that's just dumb.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Couple questions about the original Dark Souls which i still have on steam.

I'm pondering if i should keep it or not. From what i see the community has mostly moved to the remastered version, not the least because you can't buy the original anymore, but i'd still like to keep it just because i think the visuals look more natural than the remaster. Like, the lighting seems more appropriate to me.

The issue is that i'm having a couple of problems with DSFix that i can't seem to be able to solve. One, despite the fact the aspect ratio is correct, the game looks slightly squished. I noticed the numbers on the souls counter seemed somewhat narrower but what confirmed it was the controller icons that you see in the menu are not actually round (where as they are in the remaster). Second, the frame rate doesn't want to stay to 60 FPS, no matter what, keeps fluctuating between 30 and 60, and my PC is actually better than what i used to have when i first played it, where i didn't actually have this problem, so i know it's not that.

The alternative maybe is some graphical mod that restores the original feel, but there doesn't seem to be many. Saw a couple on Nexus but they just seemed to make things worst, bloomy and excessively bright, where as all i want is for the game to look like it used to while retaining all the quality of life stuff from the remaster.

 

[Strange Fellow]

The issue is that i'm having a couple of problems with DSFix that i can't seem to be able to solve. One, despite the fact the aspect ratio is correct, the game looks slightly squished. I noticed the numbers on the souls counter seemed somewhat narrower but what confirmed it was the controller icons that you see in the menu are not actually round (where as they are in the remaster).

What's your native resolution? I'm on a 16:10 display and I remember I had some issues with this as well. I think I ended up playing letterboxed, but even that was a pain to set up. If that's not it, I seem to remember that DSFix implements HUD scaling, so maybe that fucks with things somehow.

 

[Lyric Suite]

1440p, so 16:9, like the original, which is why i'm confused.

 

[sullynathan]

I remember DSFix not being perfect, so expect it to fluctuate. You could always just ignore lightning and get remastered regardless.

 

[Latelistener]

The issue is that i'm having a couple of problems with DSFix that i can't seem to be able to solve. One, despite the fact the aspect ratio is correct, the game looks slightly squished. I noticed the numbers on the souls counter seemed somewhat narrower but what confirmed it was the controller icons that you see in the menu are not actually round (where as they are in the remaster).

What are your DSfix settings? Internal resolution is the one the game is rendered at, which means you can enter any resolution and pump it up to 8K or more. The display width/height is the resolution of your monitor (you can keep at 0, if internal resolution = resolution of your monitor).

For 1440p it should be like that:

Spoiler

# internal rendering resolution of the game
# higher values will decrease performance
renderWidth 2560
renderHeight 1440

# The display width/height
# 0 means use the same resolution as renderWidth/Height
# (use for downscaling - if in doubt, leave at 0)
presentWidth 2560
presentHeight 1440

Secondly, make sure "enableHudMod = 0".

Second, the frame rate doesn't want to stay to 60 FPS, no matter what, keeps fluctuating between 30 and 60, and my PC is actually better than what i used to have when i first played it, where i didn't actually have this problem, so i know it's not that.

If your fps suddenly drops from 60 to 30 whenever you get a slight fps drop, you need to disable VSync. I think these settings can help you with that.

Spoiler

unlockFPS 1
FPSlimit 60
borderlessFullscreen 1
enableVsync 0

But in all honesty, the game won't be stable at 60. DSfix is not a magical solution. It doesn't optimize the badly optimized game. I also read about potential problems with 60 fps, so I unlocked the fps setting, but set fpslimit to 30 and disabled VSync. If you want 60, play Remastered. They actually optimized it well, but the original looks better.

The alternative maybe is some graphical mod that restores the original feel, but there doesn't seem to be many. Saw a couple on Nexus but they just seemed to make things worst, bloomy and excessively bright, where as all i want is for the game to look like it used to while retaining all the quality of life stuff from the remaster.

This mod had some potential: https://www.nexusmods.com/darksoulsremastered/mods/91?tab=description
I think the guy directly edited the lighting settings on levels via some tool.

The problem is that he got shat on by the DS community, which is absolutely disgusting considering how much time he put into it and done it for free. So he's not going to work on it anymore, but maybe someone else will.

 

[Silva]

Back to my pyro playthrough... and I had forget how Duke's Archives is a shitty level. It tried to change the upclose and personal nature of the game exploration to a long range projectile dodging and it simply didn't work.

 

[Vyadhis]

Couple questions about the original Dark Souls which i still have on steam.

I'm pondering if i should keep it or not. From what i see the community has mostly moved to the remastered version, not the least because you can't buy the original anymore, but i'd still like to keep it just because i think the visuals look more natural than the remaster. Like, the lighting seems more appropriate to me.

The issue is that i'm having a couple of problems with DSFix that i can't seem to be able to solve. One, despite the fact the aspect ratio is correct, the game looks slightly squished. I noticed the numbers on the souls counter seemed somewhat narrower but what confirmed it was the controller icons that you see in the menu are not actually round (where as they are in the remaster). Second, the frame rate doesn't want to stay to 60 FPS, no matter what, keeps fluctuating between 30 and 60, and my PC is actually better than what i used to have when i first played it, where i didn't actually have this problem, so i know it's not that.

The alternative maybe is some graphical mod that restores the original feel, but there doesn't seem to be many. Saw a couple on Nexus but they just seemed to make things worst, bloomy and excessively bright, where as all i want is for the game to look like it used to while retaining all the quality of life stuff from the remaster.

I believe you can get Remastered for half off if you already own PTD edition so I'd just go with that. I 100%ed PTD a few years ago but I think most of the changes in remastered are enough to warrant the price if you really love Dark Souls. I don't like the weapon matchmaking and some of the new lighting is blah but I really didn't notice the latter as much as I would have expected to. Another issue with dsfix (sorry if someone mentioned this already) is that you can't go 60 fps properly because it screws up your jumping and roll frames. Some jumps (like the one to the crestfallen merchant) are damn near impossible to pull off if you have 60 fps toggled in dsfix. Of course if you don't care about fps then this is a non-issue.


Its weird because I was expecting to be disgusted by DSR's changes but mostly didn't notice and im the kind of person who flatout refuses to play BG:EE because of the graphical/UI stuff.

 

[RoSoDude]

You can just press backspace to toggle DSFix between 30FPS and 60FPS, you know.

...and I did every single jump at 60FPS, including the Iato jump in Blighttown which required leaping at a precise angle to slide down a post. I'd almost regard this hardcore platforming as an improvement.

 

[Black Angel]

Back to my pyro playthrough... and I had forget how Duke's Archives is a shitty level. It tried to change the upclose and personal nature of the game exploration to a long range projectile dodging and it simply didn't work.

Wha? Duke's Archives is literally the best level post-Lordvessel/Anor Londo. It's a shining jewel in the darkness of Demon Ruins-Lost Izalith-Tomb of the Giants (even though TotG ain't even half-bad).

 

[Caim]

Back to my pyro playthrough... and I had forget how Duke's Archives is a shitty level. It tried to change the upclose and personal nature of the game exploration to a long range projectile dodging and it simply didn't work.

Wha? Duke's Archives is literally the best level post-Lordvessel/Anor Londo. It's a shining jewel in the darkness of Demon Ruins-Lost Izalith-Tomb of the Giants (even though TotG ain't even half-bad).

The Archives are good right until the very end, in the caves with the invisible walkways.

 

[Black Angel]

Back to my pyro playthrough... and I had forget how Duke's Archives is a shitty level. It tried to change the upclose and personal nature of the game exploration to a long range projectile dodging and it simply didn't work.

Wha? Duke's Archives is literally the best level post-Lordvessel/Anor Londo. It's a shining jewel in the darkness of Demon Ruins-Lost Izalith-Tomb of the Giants (even though TotG ain't even half-bad).

The Archives are good right until the very end, in the caves with the invisible walkways.

Yeah, the Crystal Cave is obviously the worse part of the whole, but it's no different than Tomb of the Giants in regards to platforming. Maybe it's easier with light source, but the Crystal Cave is feasible with colored pebble thingy (forgot its exact name).

 

[The_Mask]

The Crystal Caves are my favourite area of the game. The way to the Blue Titanite Slab is SO rewarding it's unreal. And every time I showed that to newbies, they shit their pants.

 

[MajorMace]

Duke's archives are the closest to the demon's souls feel of Tower of Latria, which is my all-time favourite Souls location.
ps : I'm indeed a berserk amateur.

 

[Elwro]

Archives are fine before you start hunting for the trident.

 

[Black Angel]

Archives are fine before you start hunting for the trident.

What are you saying? That's the fun part. They even teased it as far back as Undead Parish and the Depths.

 

[Silva]

This only shows how differently the game is felt by different players, which is a quality I guess.

I find the whole Soulsborne series is at it's best when you don't know what will come from a corner, the threat is up close and personal, and ambience is dark to capitalize on this. So levels like Tomb of Giants and New Londo (and Bloodborne's Upper Carhedral and Forbidden Forest) are superbly tense for me, while Dukes Archives with it's day lighting and long range/no surprise encounters is one of the weakest. And I'm not even counting that dreaded crystal cave at the end.

And really, Dukes Archive reminiscent of Latria? This is a joke right?

 

[MajorMace]

Dukes Archive reminiscent of Latria? This is a joke right?

Absolutely not.

 

[Silva]

Archives are fine before you start hunting for the trident.

Trident? What trident?

 

[Lutte]

Duke's archives is one of the few areas I legitimately enjoy in post Sen's Fortress DS1, along with the painted world. Compared to both, tomb and new londo are too heavily reliant on the One gimmick they feature, and I really am not fond of engaging ghosts and the clipping through wall shiet. The first time you enter those places they do create the sense of tension Silva mentions but it quickly turns into a very repetitive game of careful motions which doesn't change much over the course of the level and once I learned the pathing of tomb, the few times I replayed the latter part of DS1 I just ran straight for neato and ignored the rest of the level.

Unfortunately, New Londo has too much shit in it that makes it worth more carefully exploring the areas so I still go through the motions there.

 

[Silva]

Duke's archives is one of the few areas I legitimately enjoy in post Sen's Fortress DS1, along with the painted world. Compared to both, tomb and new londo are too heavily reliant on the One gimmick they feature, and I really am not fond of engaging ghosts and the clipping through wall shiet. The first time you enter those places they do create the sense of tension Silva mentions but it quickly turns into a very repetitive game of careful motions which doesn't change much over the course of the level and once I learned the pathing of tomb, the few times I replayed the latter part of DS1 I just ran straight for neato and ignored the rest of the level.

Unfortunately, New Londo has too much shit in it that makes it worth more carefully exploring the areas so I still go through the motions there.

Makes sense. But then even Dukes Archives is easy peasy on subsequent playthroughs and you know where to go and what to do. I just did it now by flashing through the chanellers and got to crystal cave in 10 min.

Overall, I think it's only worth discussing levels quality on the couple first playthroughs or when you're far away from the games a long time and forgot details of the levels. If you know them as the palm of your hand, the discussion becomes moot.